Keith Houghton

Prior to his retirement Keith Houghton was Professor of Business Administration at the Australian National University. He is now an Emeritus Professor of the University.

Professor Houghton holds degrees from the University of Western Australia, the University of Melbourne and the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is a Fellow of CPA Australia and the Institute of Accountants in Australia.

For eight years Professor Houghton served as Dean of the University’s College of Business and Economics and its antecedent bodies. He was also Director of the National Graduate School of Management before its merger into the College in 2006. During periods over the ten year service at the ANU he served as the Chair of the University Academic Board and the Audit and Risk Management Committee. He has been a member of the University Council. He was also Chair of the University’s Access and Equity Committee.

Professor Houghton’s teaching and research supervisory responsibilities have included undergraduate, honours and postgraduate coursework and PhD supervision.

He has written and published widely in international journals (including the Journal of Accounting Research) domestic scholarly journals (including Abacus) and served on a number of Editorial Boards (including The Accounting Review). The research paradigm applied by Professor Houghton involves the use of archival and experimental data.

Professor Houghton was a member of the Australian Audit and Assurance Standards Board for a number of years during its transformation to a Federal Government statuary authority. He was also a member of the three-person taskforce created by the accounting profession in response to evidence provided to the HIH Insurance Royal Commission.

The 2002 Australian Parliamentary Inquiry on Auditor Independence made specific note of Professor Houghton’s research on audit quality. He has been one of two independent reviewers of the Australian audit practice of the accounting firm KPMG prior to the formal oversight by Australia’s corporate regulator ASIC.

• Auditor independence
• Corporate and Organisational Governance
• Public sector auditing